Proof the reach still works

Our whole street did a porch potluck for the 250th — first time in the eleven years I've lived here that every single house came out. Somebody put the album on a speaker in a wagon and pulled it up and down the street like an ice cream truck for grown-ups. I watched two neighbors who I KNOW had words during election season stand shoulder to shoulder holding sparklers. Whatever this campaign is, it was ON my street Friday night. A hundred million hearts still reaching — I counted at least forty of them on Maple Drive alone.

My wife is deployed. Eight months down, four to go. I sent her the song with no message. She called at 4am her time and we didn't say much, just kind of sat on the phone together while it played. Three slow minutes. Whoever made this — thank you. That was the closest she's felt since Christmas.

My mother became a citizen in 1987 and she's been gone two years now. I played this song and heard her voice in it — she used to say America never asked her what she came from, only what she'd build. My reach was my daughter. I told her the whole story, the crossing, the little candle Grandma kept on the windowsill every single night. She's 15 and she cried and then she asked to hear the song again. Some reaches go backward and forward at the same time.

My reach was my dad, and honestly this was the song that did it. We didn't fall out over each other — we fell out over the TV. Both of us, different channels, same poison. I called him and said "Dad, I think we got robbed. Somebody took our Sunday dinners and sold them for ratings." Long pause. Then he laughed and said "no more love and run, huh." We turned everything off and played euchre for three hours. First time in four years.

My daddy passed in 2021 and his brother — my uncle Ray — didn't come to the funeral. Some old money thing between them that spilled onto the rest of us. I heard the line about scrolling right past somebody and I realized I've had his number in my phone for five years and never once pressed it. He answered like no time had passed. We talked for an hour about Daddy's old boat. I'm driving up to see him Sunday.

My neighbor Dave and I put up opposite yard signs in 2024 and haven't said a word since. Two years of pretending not to see each other at the mailbox. Played this song in the garage, walked over with half the brisket I'd smoked, and said "I can't remember what we're mad about, but I remember you jumping my truck in that ice storm." We ate on his tailgate. Still disagree about everything. Watching the game together Saturday anyway.

The song "The Most Beautiful" reminds me of our own arch right here in St. Louis, what an amazing history to fall back in love with.

An old friend who couldn’t let go of politics so I had to stop hanging out with him. Turns out, he is even more of a jerk than before, but after this album, our history and what we all face together, he is also more of a friend than before.